When is a Chapter too Long?

NiQuinn

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Came across a lot of mentions of chapter lengths. Out of curiosity, how long is too long for you all? Or, how short is too short? In published works, 3000 words per chapter is a good, average length. Not something strictly followed but I suppose 3000 is a good enough range for readers to have enough time to settle in and take a break when they want to.

As a reader, what length exhausts you when reading chapters?



P.S. Love you, 3000. Sorry, couldn't resist.
 

Paraknight

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My novel only average 1.5k words per chapter daily. But as for reading chapters, it really depends on how entertaining the story is. When I found the story entertaining, even if they have 10k words per chapter, it wouldn't exhaust me.
 

Kotohood

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As a reader I'm fine with any length as long as the chapter is not 100k words long or 200 words long.

I'm also fine with chapters ranging from different lengths at times from 2000 to 10000 as long there is a coherent story to be told.

Overall, it's not the amount that I care but the quality of it.(tho I do like longer chapters fite me)

Regarding breaks and settling in, it doesn't really matter. Since as a reader I can take a break whenever I want to, the author doesn't dictate when I rest. If the story seperate scenes cleanly and in a good way I don't see this as a problem at all.
 
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Nihilaine

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As a writer I think the sweet spot is around 1K - 4K if you want to do a daily grind. Anything further than that will probably only burn yourself out.

Tho as a reader, I'm skeptical with stories with under less than 500 words in every chapters. As for how long is it...well exhaustion isn't on my dictionary since im used to reading books in one sitting which is averaging around 50-100K words.
 

bananapink

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For online reading, I think 5k is good enough.

Hmmm, my max writing is 5k and a minimum of 1k per chapter. If the reader likes the story, it won't matter whether it's too long. I myself as a reader would love to see a chapter full.
 

tak

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My measurement isn't word count but how much i scroll, which is, you know, different depending on font size & screen size. So i can't really help much sorry 😅
 

CupcakeNinja

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Came across a lot of mentions of chapter lengths. Out of curiosity, how long is too long for you all? Or, how short is too short? In published works, 3000 words per chapter is a good, average length. Not something strictly followed but I suppose 3000 is a good enough range for readers to have enough time to settle in and take a break when they want to.

As a reader, what length exhausts you when reading chapters?



P.S. Love you, 3000. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Anything past 4000. But I take a while to post chapters sometimes so I make up for it with long chapters around 5000 and I never see complaints. Personally I think you only really get tired when the chapter isn't interesting enough to support such a length. Eastern novels like to drone on and on about the same shit for word count so those get particularly boring fast. Easy to use them as an example. Better works? You dont even really notice the time you just get sucked in and before you know it you read three whole chapters each prolly like 3000 words long.
 

S-Scherr

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For me, it depends on what's happening in the chapter. Actions scenes and scenes with a lot of dialogue tend to move much quicker so I'll let them run longer. If there's a bit more building narrative that slows down the pace, I'll run shorter chapters. My average is between 3,000 to 5,000 words. Sometimes I've run much longer, especially if it's a finale or a premiere, and sometimes less than 3k. After doing this a while you develop an ability to know when to 'naturally' end an episode or chapter. It just feels right when you get there ;)
 

GDLiZy

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I always keep it at around 2k words. However, it really depends on which type of novels you are writing.
 

Wahyu123

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My novel only average 1.5k words per chapter daily. But as for reading chapters, it really depends on how entertaining the story is. When I found the story entertaining, even if they have 10k words per chapter, it wouldn't exhaust me.
Konosuba?
 

Phantomheart

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If I have to take breaks in the middle of reading and restart the chapter more than twice because my phone glitches out and sends me back to the top of the page; that is when a chapter is too long.
 

DaoFox

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these questions are always fun because there is no single correct answer. It always boils down to 1) who is your target audience and intended Genre and 2) what do you feel most comfortable with.

the first looks to precedent according to published books and what you typically find per genre, such that the total length of a story/novel is determined to be within a certain range which differs, such that Fantasy novels see a different length to Scifi and romance etc. the format is also important as published books often favour longer chapters (based on reaching a scene to a satisfying conclusion instead of the word count per se) as the turning of pages means readers aren't being reminded of its particular length. I have seen some chapters in fantasy go for about 13k words, only to be followed up by something just a few short pages of maybe not even 1k words. the shortest I have personally read concluded a certain chapter in just a single paragraph reaching not even 100 words, but it only happened once in the whole novel series.

Webnovels, such as what gets posted to sites like SH, RRL, syosetsu, Qidian etc the world over, you typically find brevity to be more popular so word count averaging around 2k words, which lots of writers making this an almost steadfast rule where ever chapter is almost the same length and this is constant through a whole series, no matter if it ends in 15 chapters or 1500.

these are just "what you tend to see and expect to find" however. in the second, the most important bit and the only rule that is consistent to all writers, is that you write until you are satisfied with the content and progress of a chapter. if that takes just 1k words, that is fine, if you are being as meticulous as possible but the word count still comes out to 3k or 5k etc, thats fine too. you did the hard work to write only what needed to be written, don't worry about how many words it took.

in published novels you find chapters always vary with the shortest and longest chapters possibly being differing in length by anywhere from 1k words to 5k words or more. Only really in webnovels do you find people write with very little spread in chapter length. just as it is important to have a variety of sentence and paragraph lengths in a chapter to keep the flow moving and easy to read, the chapters also need some variation to allow for the importance of scenes to be contrasted in the readers mind.
 

Bladedante

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Came across a lot of mentions of chapter lengths. Out of curiosity, how long is too long for you all? Or, how short is too short? In published works, 3000 words per chapter is a good, average length. Not something strictly followed but I suppose 3000 is a good enough range for readers to have enough time to settle in and take a break when they want to.

As a reader, what length exhausts you when reading chapters?



P.S. Love you, 3000. Sorry, couldn't resist.
I personally find as long as the chapter is longer than 750 words I'm happy anything less is just a tease with my reading speed I can easily read 300 words per minute so 500-700 word chapters are liess that 2 minutes and is just long enough to truly get me interested just for the chapter to end. A good length that I see regularly is 1500 words just long enough to make you feel like you have actually read something while not being overly hard on the author I generally am happy with 1500-2000
 
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